


Old Dogs

by Corycides



Series: Miles Matheson Appreciation Week [4]
Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-24
Updated: 2013-06-24
Packaged: 2017-12-16 02:15:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/856604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corycides/pseuds/Corycides
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charlie was Miles'. Not biologically. Probably not biologically (the odds were 25/1, Rachel had told him once. He’d never asked exactly how she’d worked that out). It was just the way things had fallen out after the war started. Charlie was Miles’, Danny was Rachel’s.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Old Dogs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Steph_Schell](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Steph_Schell/gifts).



Charlie was Miles'. Not biologically. Probably not biologically (the odds were 25/1, Rachel had told him once. He’d never asked exactly how she’d worked that out). It was just the way things had fallen out after the war started. Charlie was Miles’, Danny was Rachel’s.

So Miles was taken aback to find Danny waiting for him in his tent one night.

‘Is something wrong with Rachel?’ he asked, pausing halfway through shucking his sword belt. ‘Charlie-?’

‘No,’ Danny said. ‘I just need to talk to you.’

Relaxing, Miles hung his sword from its hook and pulled a bottle of whiskey from under his pillow. He tilted it towards Danny and raised his eyebrows in question. The kind wrinkled his nose.

‘No,’ he said. He folded his arms, closer to hugging himself than any gesture of defiance. ‘Charlie drinks that. Too much of that.’

Miles was a past master at fending off  guilt. ‘Yeah, I’m probably not the best role model there,’ he said flatly. Since he wasn’t going to be sharing he didn’t bother with a cup, just twisted the lid of the bottle and took a swig of the rubbing alcohol inside. ‘So what is it?’

‘I don’t like you,’ Danny said. ‘You saved my life and I don’t like you. Does that make me ungrateful?’

Miles shrugged ‘A bit.’ Although he hadn’t done it for gratitude. Not for Danny’s anyhow. ‘Would you rather I hadn’t done it?’

Danny sat down on the cot, wrinkling the thin sheets. He twisted his hands together, staring at his fingers like they had a secret he’d not worked out yet. ‘Maybe.’ Blue eyes looked up, fiercely accusing under a flop of bleach-blonde hair. He looked painfully like Charlie, just for a second. ‘I can’t fight. Oh they give me a sword and if we’re overrun, its all hands. Last time I went out on patrol with Charlie, though? I near got us all killed when I had an asthma attack. Charlie practically had to carry me back, like I was a kid.’

This was about feelings. Miles could tell. He swallowed more booze and wondered if there was time to get the whole bottle in before he had to be understanding.

‘You have asthma,’ he said. ‘People understand. You help with the wounded, work with your mom and Aaron-’

Danny’s face twisted and.... Oh god, he was crying. Miles set the whiskey down and got up, gingerly reaching out to put his hand on the shaking shoulder. Thank god the kid was Matheson enough to shrug him off, scrubbing his sleeve over his face and sniffing.

‘It’s my fault,’ he said. One hand waved. ‘All this.’

‘No,’ Miles said. ‘It’s...’ He wasn’t entirely sure. Was it Bass’, for kidnapping the kid? Or Miles’, for starting the militia? There was always Rachel (Ben, as always, somehow exempt from judgement, this time thanks to being dead), who’d killed the world, but didn’t like to talk about it. ‘It’s not your fault.’

‘It is,’ Danny insisted. ‘If it wasn’t for me, you and Charlie wouldn’t have gone up against Monroe. If it wasn’t for me, Mom wouldn’t have turned the power off. I heard her and Aaron talking, she told him.’

For someone that kept so many secrets, Miles thought grimly, Rachel had a big mouth. He sat down on the cot next to Danny, leaning on his knees. There was a scab on his knuckle from interrogating Neville. He picked it off and then frowned at the blob of blood that welled up like it surprised him.

‘That doesn’t make it your fault,’ he said. ‘It’s your fault if you could have changed it, your fault if you did it. You can’t blame yourself for other people’s decisions.’

‘You do.’

‘Old dogs don’t learn new tricks.’

Danny took a wet breath and rubbed his fingers over wet lashes. ‘I’m why she won’t turn the power back on.’

‘No-’

Danny glared at him. ‘Yes. We argued about, about this and she said...she said that I couldn’t fix it, that she wouldn’t, because the nanites were keeping me alive. I’ve got them...in me.’

He stretched his fingers out and stared at them, watching the play of muscle and tendon, the way his knuckles poked white against his skin.

‘If she turns the power back on, I’ll die,’ he said. ‘So she won’t turn the power back on.’

Danny looked at Miles like he would have the answer, but this wasn’t something he could stab. Eventually, he just hooked his arm over Danny’s shoulder, clenching his fists in the kid’s shirt.

‘It’s still not your fault,’ he said. ‘We can fix this. I’ll talk to Rachel in a couple of days.’

Danny nodded, wiping his face on his cuff.

After a couple of minutes of awkward silence he got up to go, pausing at the tent flap when Miles cleared his throat.

‘Don’t tell your Mom, that you told me,’ he said. ‘She’ll be defensive.’

Danny twisted his mouth and nodded. ‘Ok.’

He left and Miles slumped over, pressing his knuckles against his forehead. One more wrinkle to the shit-storm that was his life. He straightened up eventually and got his bottle, determined to drink until his brain stopped working.

It wasn’t Danny’s fault. That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to pay for it. They were losing. Without power this war would kill them all. Miles didn’t blame Rachel for protecting her son, but...

Danny was Rachel’s and Charlie was his.


End file.
